had no power to turn the tide, and the
scandal floated on. In society itself judgment was divided. Whether
"Laura" was or was not a work of the highest art, was a question you
might have heard discussed at every other dinner-table. Perhaps the
criticism that was most to the point was that of Miss Gladys Armstrong,
who proclaimed publicly that Langley Wyndham laboured under the
disadvantage of not being a woman, and having no imagination to make up
for it. Meanwhile the tone of the larger reviews remained unchanged. The
reviewers, to a man, had committed themselves to the position that the
book was Wyndham's masterpiece; and nobody could be found to go back on
that opinion.

But in all that concert of adulation one voice was silent--the only
voice that Wyndham cared to hear, that of Percival Knowles. The others
might howl in chorus, and it would not be worth his while even to
listen; he was looking forward to Knowles's long impressive solo. But
that solo never came, neither could the note of Knowles be detected in
the intricate chorus. It was strange. Knowles had been the high priest
of the new Wyndham worship, and to him the eminent novelist had looked
for sympathy and appreciation. But Knowles had made no sign. They had
avoided the subject whenever they met; Wyndham was not so hardened by
authorship as to have lost the instinctive delicacy felt by the creator
at the birth of his book. Knowles seemed only too much inclined to
respect that delicacy. Finally, Wyndham resolved to go and see his
friend alone, and tentatively sound him on the subject of "Laura." He
proposed to himself a pleasant evening's chat, in which that lady would
be discussed in all her bearings, and he would enjoy a foretaste of the
praise ere long to be dealt out to him before an admiring public. On his
way to Knowles's rooms he heard in fancy the congratulation, the
temperate flattery, the fine discriminating phrase.

He found Knowles amusing himself with a blue pencil and Miss Armstrong's
last novel. "Laura: An Idyll of Piccadilly" lay on the table beside him,
its pages cut, but with none of those slips of paper between them which
marked the other books put aside for review. Knowles greeted his friend
with an embarrassed laugh, and they fell to discussing every question of
the hour except the burning one for Wyndham. By the rapidity of his
conversational manoeuvres, it was evident that the critic wanted to
steer clear of that topic. Wyndham, howe